Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - May/92

Contributor - Jeff Kingswood

Title - Ministry to Native Canadians: The Historical Reality and The Contemporary Challenge

Topic - Canada

Did you know that in Canada there are over half a million native people? These include four groups of native peoples: 1) Status Indians comprising some 300,000 people, 2) Nonstatus Indians of which there are some 75,000, 3) Metis with about 150,000 people, and 4) Inuit numbering about 25,000.

These are only the four major groupings in Statistics Canada's Census figures and within each of these four groups we find numerous cultures and traditions. There are 578 distinct band groups in Canada each with its own traditions. They are all lumped together by most Canadians as simply "Indians". Yet what soon becomes apparent in any study of Canada's native peoples is that there is no single Canadian native culture - there are many and they are all unique in some way.

It is a sad commentary on the state of Canadian missionary activity at home that even the most sincere Canadian Christians often know more about traditions such as Islam and Buddhism than they know about the traditions of our own native peoples.

Only in recent years have the Scriptures become available to native Canadians in their native tongues and only recently has a century of neglect been embarrassingly admitted. Why is this and what can we do, as Canadian Christians, to carry the message of Christ to a people who often associate it with the abuse of their own culture?

History of Ministry to Native People

In order to even begin to answer these questions, it is important to look at some of the history of ministry to native peoples, to see how that history has influenced both our understandings of native people and their reactions to Christianity, and finally to propose some way to begin to minister effectively to them.

It would seem that early missions to the native people of North America were well intentioned. A written policy statement of the American Presbyterian Church dated in the mid 1840's states that "preaching, founding churches under native leadership, and education" were to be the main thrusts of mission activity (Coleman, 1978, p. 181). In actual practice, however, things often took on a negative nature. The missionaries in their zeal attacked almost every aspect of aboriginal culture, kinship patterns, modes of economy, dress, leadership. All were judged from a European perspective which often equated European with Christian.

Theology was not a problem. The missionaries of Presbyterian churches in this era were usually soundly reformed in doctrine. They didn't believe that the Indian was an inferior human being.

On the contrary, the Indian was created in the image of God' and therefore was a full human being redeemable by God's grace (Coleman, 1978, p. 182). They did believe on the other hand that Indian culture, with a few exceptions, was one of the tools of Satan that served to keep the native peoples in a spiritual bondage. This viewpoint was not unique to American Presbyterians, but seems to have been held by Canadian Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries as well (Goulet, 1984, pp. 301-304). In fact, this feeling carried on well into the twentieth century and a passage from a Roman Catholic journal illustrates the point rather well:

In the 1930's and 1940's missionaries secured the help of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in discouraging Ojibway religious activities. Mounties raided Midewiwin ceremonies, forbade shaking tent rites, arrested and otherwise harassed members of the Grassy Narrows band for engaging in religious ceremonies and forced the native faith underground (Goulet, 1984, p. 305).

While all of this was going on many denominations were asking themselves why Christian mission to native people was for the most part so unsuccessful. One theologian from Toronto provides a thesis: Mission loses its effectiveness in proportion to the oppressive power in which it shares and to the powerlessness of the receptor culture. (Starkloff 1985, p. 84)

If this is so, then we have no difficulty in suggesting that there has been no other surviving people on earth that have been so completely defeated by another culture. The missionaries, unwittingly no. doubt, played a large role in that cultural conquest by imposing a strange language, residential schools, and European cultural norms, while at the same time the native people were being driven off of their land and herded into reserves. To the native people the missionary was a white man first.

A New Era of Christian Ministry This is the legacy with which we are left. The news media is filled with stories of abuse of native children removed from their families by so-called Christians to be educated by the white society. While that saga continues, a new era of Christian ministry to native people has come into being as we see more native people moving into our cities with a sense of dislocation and isolation, and as white and nonwhite continue to argue over the development of land which was once the exclusive domain of these native people.

In our urban centres the mainline churches have established projects such as Council Fire, which seeks to provide a place for native people in Toronto to find community and help in facing the awesome task of adjusting to the urban I white' way of life (Redmond, 1982, p. 343).

Another example of such an advocacy outreach' is Project North, which seeks to allow the native people of Canada's north some measure of self-determination and at the same time expressing to them a sense of solidarity with them in their search for social justice (Llewellyn, 1982, p. 352).

These types of activities are limited to social work and social activism and have failed to take seriously the mission mandate of proclaiming the gospel of redemption. Some denominations have even gone so far as to apologize for the missionary activity of the past.

In the face of such turmoil in native Canadian missions a trend is evident. We are now seeing in Canada revival of native religions which are claimed to be an integral part of native cultural survival. This so called "neo-primal" movement is, undoubtedly, the primary challenge today in ministry to native people. This neoprimal movement exhibits three major characteristics: 1) Native people are still angry at the abuses the church has been part of historically and see the church as unable to fulfil their needs. 2) They believe that ultimately all religions seek healing and new life. 3) The true religious life of their people depends on recovering and following the meaningful traditions handed down from the elders. (Starkloff, 1985, p. 86)

Responding to Challenges

If the church of Jesus Christ is to successfully minister to the native people of Canada, it seems that a strategy of ministry will have to develop which gives an answer to these challenges of the neo-primal movement. Let's took briefly at each challenge and the response it calls for.

First, the contention that the Church is unable to meet the needs of native people is a startling damnation of the faith that they see being offered them. If we want native people to begin to take the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ seriously, then we have to begin to take Him seriously. If we want native people to see that our faith makes a difference in our lives, then we must behave as if it does. People only expect a faith to be relevant to their lives if they see its relevance in the lives of those who profess to believe. We need to treat native people as Jesus Christ would treat them.

Secondly, we may agree to disagree with the neo-primal movement's belief that all religions seek healing and new life, but as Christians we must assert that there is only one faith that offers healing and new life. If the church truly believes the words of Christ "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6), then we must not be timid about proclaiming that new life in Christ. We must insist upon the exclusiveness of the saving grace of Jesus Christ. To deny the exclusiveness of the Christian gospel is to deny Christ himself and in the end that will win no one.

Thirdly, we must be sympathetic to the desire of our native people to preserve their distinct heritages. We must assert that to become a Christian does not mean ceasing to be Indian or Inuit anymore than it means that we have ceased to be Dutch, Scottish, English or Canadian. Certain practices that are not in accord with the law of God will have to be surrendered. However, those aspects of native culture that do no harm to the message of the Gospel must be allowed and even encouraged.

Encouraging native peoples themselves to take leadership of the local people of God in worship and to seek representation of their people by their people in the courts of the church are also necessary. This is happening more and more as we see organizations such as the Native Evangelical Fellowship of' Canada ministering, providing theological education, and worshipping as native Canadian Christians.

We need to repent of our ignorance and apathy and seek to minister with our native brothers and sisters to those who still have that ugly distorted view of the church and to show instead a community of believers reaching out to the lost, encouraging them to be Native Canadian Christians.

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